


Of Sketches and Maps

by Silvereye



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Marriage, Marriage Arranged Because of Matching Soulmarks, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-24 18:49:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20019307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvereye/pseuds/Silvereye
Summary: The first thing about Natasha's soulmark is, she genuinely isn't sure when it came in. The second thing about Natasha's soulmark is, she knew the person immediately when she saw the mark.Natasha would prefer to not think of her soulmark. It's bad luck not to resolve the matter, though, so when someone notices her mark she has to deal with it. And by "deal", people generally mean "get married".





	Of Sketches and Maps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SinginInTheRaine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinginInTheRaine/gifts).



> SinginInTheRaine - I hope you like it.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to my incomparable beta for yet another eleventh-hour readthrough.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the first person to notice one's soulmark is someone one certainly wouldn't want to notice it.

In Natasha's case it goes like this: she's sitting in a hallway of the royal palace, waiting for Steve to finish his shower so they can go to the makeshift meeting to figure out… everything, really. She's fairly sure she should be downstairs already, they probably need every pair of hands attached to a vaguely functioning brain, but somehow she can't make herself move. She's concerned Steve is attempting to drown himself in the shower because he never takes so long. That must be it.

(Natasha can hear the difference between a person showering and a shower running empty. This sounds like the former. If she sits out here she can be certain Steve is still in it, hasn't disappeared. But she likes the other explanation better.)

"Is he – huh." One of the Dora Milaje, whose name Natasha doesn't know yet, stops at the corner. "That's a soulmark."

It must be peeking out from under the towel on her shoulders. Natasha is too tired to do anything but nod. It sure fucking is a soulmark. She can usually suppress it, but not today.

The Dora Milaje eyes it for a moment, then nods towards the showers. "Is he still there?"

The shower stops as if on cue. Natasha says: "We'll be right there. Sorry for keeping you waiting."

The woman nods and leaves. Steve gets out three minutes later. He looks at her, sitting by the door. She shrugs. He nods. They go to the meeting.

And that should be it except two weeks later General Okoye summons her to a meeting.

*

"You have a soulmark," is the second thing Okoye says, right after "hello".

"I do," Natasha says and tries not to think about it. She's forced the damn thing down again, her arms clear and empty of all treacherous images, but it still exists.

"Do you know who it is?" Okoye asks. She rolls her eyes when Natasha hesitates. "Please do not try to play spy games with me. Do you or do you not?"

"I do," Natasha says again. "I do not know whether the – other person has my mark."

Okoye regards her. Then the general asks, dryly: "Have you considered asking?"

"Yes, I have considered it," Natasha answers.

"Go and ask. Make it a priority."

Natasha blinks. "A priority?"

"Yes," Okoye says. "They say it's very unlucky to know who your soulmate is and not resolve the matter. I do not know whether it's true. I will not risk any more bad luck."

"I see," Natasha says and wonders whether Okoye means what Natasha thinks she means. Wakanda is not obligated to tolerate their presence after they essentially brought Thanos to its doorstep. It might be reasonable to leave. They might not even be fugitives elsewhere, at this point, given how many other problems the world has right now.

But that's no reason to annoy Okoye, or the Queen, so Natasha says: "Alright. I will ask my mark about it," is dismissed and goes to have a conversation she's successfully avoided for years.

*

The first thing about Natasha's soulmark is, she genuinely isn't sure when it came in. Most people don't have marks, anyway, and all the Red Room girls were taught to hide them. She's spent years pushing any possibility of a mark off her skin. It might have appeared during that time, not when she first noticed it.

The second thing about Natasha's soulmark is, she knew the person immediately when she saw the mark. Her mark, when she twisted in front of a mirror to get a look at it, was a little sketch of Maria Hill, looking bored at a meeting. She would have recognized its style, slightly old-fashioned and decently trained, even if she hadn't recalled seeing it drawn.

Late November, 2012, a briefing so long that everyone wanted to get it over with. Natasha had been standing by the wall because a recent injury had meant sitting pulled on stitches. She had been wondering how Captain America could tolerate the thing, because he had been the only person still sitting upright and taking notes. Natasha had been behind him, so she couldn't have seen his face, but everything else had pointed to attention.

Then she had shifted her weight, which had brought a different slice of his notes to her field of vision, and she had seen the small sketch of Maria Hill that he was cross-hatching. A clever way to hide boredom, definitely.

Years later, when she saw the same sketch on the back of her arm, she sighed and then pushed the thing down as far as it could go. She had been so sure she would never get a soulmark. She hated the intrusion of it, the universe attempting to take away choice from her. Steve was – not the worst option of them all, but he was a friend and nothing more. In any case, it was historical knowledge that his mark was the great Margaret Carter, a hastily sketched map of some sort.

Now though, Natasha wonders. She hasn't seen actually his mark herself. She's certainly scribbled enough maps on Post-Its and napkins and backs of envelopes. One of these would have been the first thing Steve saw her drawing because she does not do art otherwise.

And what then, the cold part of her mind asks. Say you are mutually soulmarked and you get married as the General would prefer you to. What happens then? A romance after the end of the world?

Only one way to find out.

*

In the evening Natasha gets on the balcony of Steve's room and stays on it. He's not in yet, Wakandan locks are too smart to pick without any pressing need and it's comfortable enough here.

It's long past sunset when Steve gets to his rooms and notices her on the balcony, silhouetted against the lights outside. He lets her in, attempts a smile and fails only slightly. "You could have dropped me a message, you know."

"Where's the fun in that?" She perches on the edge of a seat. "Long day?"

"Yeah," Steve says and for a split second it looks like he might give in to exhaustion. He doesn't. He continues with a more sincere half-smile and "So, is it urgent or can I have a shower first?"

"You don't think I came here to enjoy your balcony?" Natasha asks. She waves her hand. "It's fine, go wash."

It's not as much time to prepare as she'd like, because Steve has gotten back to military-short showers. He's back in his living room in six and a half minutes and sits across the table from her. "So."

"So I have a soulmark," Natasha says and looks at Steve's reaction. A tiny line between his brows, nothing else. "And the Dora Milaje know I have a soulmark. I have been advised to, I quote, resolve the matter because it is bad luck not to and they'd rather not risk it."

"You know who it is?" Steve asks.

Here it is. Natasha gets to her feet, turns her back, takes her shirt off, because the damn thing is in an odd spot between the back of her arm and her shoulder and trying to draw her sleeve away would be more trouble. She exhales and lets the mark appear. "I do."

Steve rises, steps around the table, stands behind her. He almost touches the soulmark, then thinks better of it, hand hovering a few inches away from her shoulder. He radiates heat because of his ridiculous metabolism. Natasha can feel it like a ghost touch on her skin.

He's quiet for a while and then he says: "I guess I should show you mine," his voice unreadably neutral.

Steve steps back. Natasha turns around and looks at him lifting his shirt, pushing the waistband of his pants lower. He's usually earnest enough to be easily read. This is not one of those days. He's guarded, movements economical and Natasha can't read much other than wariness. His soulmark is low on his left side, near his hipbone, a half-minute sketch of a floor plan, with arrows and a few initials. SR, J, M, all in hasty cursive.

She steps closer, gets on one knee, inspects the thing. Not J and M after all. The Greek letter gamma and an N that almost started in Cyrillic and was then turned into the Latin letter. She would misread them herself if she didn't know how she writes when distracted. Her handwriting changes easily, but the mistakes stay the same.

Natasha gets up. Steve adjusts his clothing and takes a step back, quirks an eyebrow.

"Think I drew that," Natasha says.

"Yeah," Steve says. "That Montana mission with Gamma team, back in 2013. I remember."

So Steve has known for five years, longer than she has, and he hasn't done anything about it either. It's oddly reassuring, this clear confirmation that they're both private enough and assured enough to not act on soulmarks immediately. "I've suppressed my mark for most of my life," Natasha says. "It's what we did. A spy cannot afford a soulmark. I only figured it out a few weeks before the entire Accords mess. And in any case, I don't much like the idea. I want to make my own choices."

"And now we've been ordered to 'resolve the matter'," Steve says, quotation marks audible in his voice.

"Yeah. But it doesn't have to change anything." Natasha realizes how it sounds, then. She does not like soulmarks but there are two people to a possible marriage and Steve with his pre-war Catholic upbringing might have altogether different hangups. They can't exactly afford misunderstandings. So she continues: "Unless – do you want it to?"

Steve looks away and smiles, the way he always does when he's melancholy. "I never expected to live long enough to marry my soulmate. It was a romantic idea, but I had enough chronic illnesses to kill me before I turned thirty. Then there was the war. Then the twenty-first century and Peggy was seven decades ahead of me. She drew something like it, once. Close enough that everyone believed she… well." He sits down, draws his hands over his face. "I recognized your map, but I thought the mark was one-sided."

"Steve," Natasha says, gently, "you're misdirecting. Do you want the soulmarks to change anything?"

Steve goes still.

"I do," he says. Then: "It's not fair to you. This is not something you chose."

Natasha takes a breath. "I'm not going to promise you a grand romance, Steve. Haven't done it much and am not the type, either. But if you are okay with marrying me and figuring it out as we go then I'm okay with it, too." She hesitates and adds: "I only noticed the mark after we were already friends. Who's to say it came in any earlier?"

"Are you convincing yourself for me?" Steve asks.

"I wouldn't do that."

Steve is quiet for a while. Then he says: "I want to do it properly and I don't have a ring."

Natasha smiles. "I'm not doing this for a ring."

"Fair enough." Steve rises, gets on one knee, looks up at her. Natasha's heart skips a beat, for all she thought it wouldn't. "Natasha, will you marry me?" Steve asks, very earnestly.

"Yes," Natasha says.

*

It takes them an entire month to plan the wedding. Steve hasn't been to a church since Margaret Carter's funeral, but he is technically a Catholic and would like to get hitched under its auspices. Natasha is fairly certain she wasn't ever baptized, which apparently makes the situation hairier, and they can't exactly go to Steve's parish church in New York, which makes it hairier yet.

Natasha herself would be okay with signing her name in a randomly chosen family registry and being done with it. She would not convert to a faith she does not believe in but otherwise she has no particular feelings about Catholicism. The prospect of a church wedding cheers Steve though, and that's rare enough after Thanos, so she joins him in planning.

"This FAQ is really insistent on marriage being for procreation," she says one evening, slouched on a chair in Steve's room. She's being trying to brief herself on the whole Catholic thing because intel is always good to have. Turns out Catholicism is a lot more complicated than she thought.

"More conservative churches tend to be," Steve says. He peers over her shoulder and makes a face. "That's definitely one. Worse than my old one."

"I really hope you're not counting on a bunch of tiny faithful," Natasha says.

"Not much," Steve says. "We wouldn't have the time or the stability." He glances at her. "Unless..."

"No," Natasha says. "Don't want to and couldn't, in any case."

Steve looks like he wants to ask. Then he simply nods. "Alright."

*

Picking witnesses for the ceremony is hard.

Under normal circumstances Steve would ask Bucky or Sam. Natasha would ask Clint, or barring him, Nick, because that's one role she's pretty certain he hasn't performed before. Three of the four are out for obvious reasons. Clint doesn't return her messages after the bare confirmation that they both still live.

"It's Thor, Bruce or Rhodey," Natasha says once she's resigned herself to the fact that Clint isn't going to show up. "And asking Bruce would be awkward, so… can witnesses be gods?"

"They don't have to be faithful," Steve says dubiously.

"Do we have to mention his status to the priest?"

Steve half-smiles. "Do you want to get into a debate about how he most certainly cannot be a god? No. Let's not."

*

The wedding takes place in Khartoum, on a searing September day. Natasha is glad she had time enough to sew herself a simple white dress. Thor seems to not mind the heat. Rhodey's suit is also white linen. That only leaves Steve to worry about, because he went for the traditional black suit, but if he's uncomfortable he doesn't show it.

General Okoye offers to take them to Khartoum and doesn't suffer any of Natasha's protests, or Steve's. She could use a distraction, she says, and it's unseemly for the couple to drive, anyway.

Natasha briefed herself on the marriage ceremony, but she still misses the several first minutes of it, only startling out of her reverie when the priest mentions her name and continues with: "Have you come here to enter into marriage without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly?"

"I have," Steve says, loud and clear.

"I have," Natasha says.

"Are you prepared, as you follow the path of marriage, to love and honor each other for as long as you both shall live?" the priest asks.

"I am," Steve says.

"I am," Natasha says.

"Since it is your intention to enter the covenant of Holy Matrimony, join your right hands, and declare your consent before God and his Church," the priest says.

Steve and Natasha do join their hands. Steve's is warm, as it tends to be, almost unbearably so. Natasha wonders about her own.

"Steven Rogers, do you take Natalia Romanoff for your lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do you part?"

"I do," Steve says and the certainty in his voice sends a shiver up Natasha's spine. He's rarely hesitant, but this is something else altogether.

"Natalia Romanoff, do you take Steven Rogers for your lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do you part?"

That's it, then. Natasha feels an absurd urge to run, because she's not sure she even knows how to do the love and cherish part properly. But if she can figure it out with anyone, it's probably Steve.

"I do," she says.

"May the Lord in his kindness strengthen the consent you have declared before the Church and graciously bring to fulfillment his blessings within you. What God has joined, let no one put asunder. Let us bless the Lord."

They exchange rings after that. Gold rings would have been traditional for both of them. Theirs are plain steel. Less expensive and more durable, considering their line of work.

There's a prayer, they sign their names and that's… that. They're officially married now. Until death do them part.

*

"So," Natasha says in the evening, after they've finished early dinner with Rhodey, Thor and General Okoye. Okoye slipped away fairly early. Thor toasted for their health. Rhodey looked genuinely touched.

Steve looks at her, pauses, and then says very dryly: "Being married is no reason for a wedding night. We could go on a date first."

Natasha starts laughing. It takes her a while to stop. Everything feels vaguely absurd – she's one of the most notorious spies in the world and she just got married to Captain America because of matching soulmarks. It's ridiculous when she thinks of it like this, like someone watching in from the outside.

"That's definitely a no, then," Steve says.

"Absolutely not," Natasha says. She looks at Steve's earnest expression, wonders if he's going to ask another careful question and pre-empts it with: "Think you can pencil in a date in our schedules? Unlikely. And I did mean the freely and wholeheartedly part."

Steve still looks mildly dubious, so Natasha gets on her toes, carefully takes ahold of his lapels and kisses him. Steve startles. It's the first time they've done that. Neither Rhodey nor Thor nor Okoye knows about how you're supposed to cry "bitter" at the couple during the after-wedding meal to encourage them to kiss; kissing wasn't a part of the ceremony in this church; before the wedding it just seemed strange to – as if they would be practicing something.

For a moment Steve is very still, lips warm against hers, eyes wide and blue. Then he carefully cradles her face between his hands and kisses back. He's careful, a bit reticent, answering everything she does, but letting her lead. Under normal circumstances this seeming shyness might spook Natasha. Right here and now it feels like undivided attention. Like gentleness.

"My bed is better," she says when he draws back to catch a breath. "So?"

"Yes," he says.

Steve undresses her slowly, meticulously, his fingers ghost-light on her skin. Natasha knows how many buttons and zippers the dress has (not that many, she's not a tailor), but somehow he draws undressing her out even when Natasha has finished stripping him.

"You are a tease, Rogers," she accuses.

"Just taking my time, ma'am," he says, entirely unrepentant. He unhooks her bra and bows to kiss her shoulder roughly where her soulmark should be. Not much reason to hide it any more, but habits die hard. She lets it appear. Steve's breath stutters, giving her goosebumps, and then he kisses her again, harder and more certain.

"Steve," she says.

He kneels in front of her, sliding off her underwear, kissing a trail down her neck, chest, belly, lower; his hands on her hips to steady her, Natasha's own fingers digging into his shoulders because she's not yet bold enough to twine them in Steve's hair. She comes, shivering, and he catches her in his arms when her knees buckle.

He sets her down on the bed, careful, and lies down beside her, leaning on one elbow. His eyes are very dark in the half-light of the room. He trails his fingers across her breast, down her stomach, back up again.

"Steve," she says again and lays her hand on his hip. "Do you want to fuck me?"

"Yes," he says.

"Then what the fuck are you waiting for?"

He laughs, near silent, and bows down to kiss her neck before settling above her. Natasha gasps against his shoulder when he finally enters her and his breath catches, near-synchronous. He starts slow and deep and Natasha doesn't think she can bear it, so she bites down on his shoulder and whispers: "Harder." He does, slipping a hand between them, precise enough to send her over the edge. He buries his face in his neck and follows her with a sigh just on this side of audible.

"To love and cherish," Natasha says, when she feels up to talking again, draping herself over Steve's side. Soon it will feel too hot for cuddling. Not yet.

Steve huffs a quiet laugh. "I do try."

They're quiet for a while and then Natasha says: "I do, I think."

"Hm?" Steve says, sounding half-asleep already.

"Love you. I don't have much comparison, but I think I do."

Steve's hand around her shoulders tightens for a second. "Me, too. Love you, I mean."

She's starting to drift off, so she smiles against his shoulder, covers the soulmark on his side with her hand and stops clinging to wakefulness.


End file.
